dawn of spawn

I ventured beyond Lot 9 one day and noticed that there's a boggy area on the northeast side of a hill.  City employees trimmed fire-damaged trees in December, leaving behind perfectly stacked logs.  What a perfect situation for growing mushrooms! Mushrooms tend to like moist, shady areas and can be easily propagated by inserting wooden plugs (one-inch, round wood pieces) that have been inoculated (imbued with) mushroom spawn.  I ordered two packets of oyster mushroom plugs (100 plugs each packet) from Fungi Perfecti and spent a day with Janet and Rae drilling holes, whacking plugs, and wax-coating the holes. 

We were well-prepared, save a rubber mallet that would have been useful for fitting plugs into holes and brush that would have been good for spreading wax.  We took logs to hit the plugs in.  I felt like a neanderthal.  Hadn't even hit the Stone Age.  Pfft.  After that, we dabbed camping stove-melted wax onto the plugs to seal the mushroom spawn and keep out other fungi or bacteria from interfering.  Rae came up with the idea to fray twig ends so that they were small fibres and brush-like.  We filled stacked the eight logs of each variety of mushroom -- blue oyster and pearl oyster, so now we only have to wait.

This was one of my favorite farming days.  I got to hang out with friends, share a delicious meal, and be outside.  Let there be more of those days.

Progress!

We haven't had a rain since Feb 8 so the grains are simply hanging out. Between Feb 5 and 8 we received 8 inches of rain that permeated the fluffy, loamy, freshly-disced ground. After the rains, the soil settled into stretches of shallow hills and valleys made by the disc furrows.  The broadcast grains fell into the grooves such that they're lined up, which might be convenient for harrow weeding later on.

They've grown rapidly. As of Feb 14, 10 days after planting, these are the stats:

Rye - root length: 3 cm sprout height: 3 cm

Red fife - root length: 4 cm  sprout height: 4 cm

Sonora - root length: 1 cm sprout height: 1 cm

Triple IV - root length: 2 cm sprout height: 1-2 cm

Some days Sonora seems to be in the lead, then red fife will sprint to the fore. Place your wagers on what'll reach 8 cm the fastest!

This is the progression for Triple IV between Feb 10 and 14:

Feb 10

Feb 11

Feb 13

Feb 14

It seems that during this period the clusters are growing the fastest. This may be attributed to the surface level ability to retain soil moisture from the rain. It'll be interesting to see how this changes overtime. Will they continue to support each other, compete for moisture, or what.

Sonora - Feb 13

I'm trying to figure out what to track.  So far I've got: weather, average root depth, average sprout height, soil moisture, ambient temperature, soil temperature, time of day. Any suggestions?

I take a 10x10 square and go to a random point in the field and place it over a random area. I count how many seeds there are, how many have germinated, how many haven't, how many weeds.

As of Feb 16, these are the average numbers for each plot (two sample areas for each type):

Variety - # of weeds, germinated seed, ungerminated seed

Rye - 7, 7, 4

Sonora - 5, 22, 4

Red Fife - 4, 20, 1

Triple IV - 5, 28, 1

The areas with highest germination are:

Rye - 10, 13, 8

Sonora - 4, 23, 5

Red Fife - 6 ,26, 2

Triple IV - 7, 39, 1

Of course, these numbers aren't perfect because they don't account for how many seeds were devoured by ravens.  I come out to find hundreds of them in the field everyday.  They don't respond to me when I walk out, but they start flying when I dance to Mariah Carey's "Fantasy". I've stationed a proxy for me in perma-dance position.

Seeding

The trees were barely perceptible.  There was only grey. Was it fog or had the rain come?  No pitter pats or pours.  I put on my glasses to see the haze more clearly.  It was a good day for field work!

Julia came with her horses at 10am. Lola hung out by the grape vines while surfer Baloo (doesn't he look like a surfer with that blonde mane and tan body?) was groomed and prepped to lead the seeding.

Julia and Baloo

Once Baloo's straps were in place, Julia and I adjusted the broadcast rate for the first planting of Triple IV for Mark Stambler of Pagnol Boulanger.  The broadcaster consists of a hopper that stores grain that is released through a rotating dispenser with an adjustable opening.  Unfortunately, the release mechanism doesn't stay true to the feed rate setting. 

Adjusting broadcaster

We seeded four kinds of grain: Triple IV (100 lbs), Red Fife (250 lbs), Sonora (250 lbs), and Rye (50 lbs).  Because of the variable dispense rate, we exceeded the intended 100 lbs/acre seed rate.  The red fife supply depleted before reaching the end of the row, so I filled in the rest with crimson clover.  I hand-broadcasted the rest of the clover between the different varieties to mark the sections and add some nitrogen fixing cover crops.  Plus, they're pretty.

I'm curious to see if grains will grow in the uncultivated but lush adjacent area, so I hand-broadcast oats and vetch that Julia had laying around in about half an acre.   Let's see what this storm will do!

Before the rains

My goal is to be a well-balanced, healthy, sociable, reliable farmer. I didn't feel I had any of those qualities this past week. Reliable, maybe, but I was stressed the &%*$ out, sick, cagey, and anxious. I needed to spread compost before the second discing and the rain, with enough time to seed. No vineyard manager was available to spread compost except one, who said he'd call on Friday. The only rentable spreader needed equipment insurance that the LLC doesn't hold, so I tried to push the LLC and insurance company to add it to our account. John Gramke said he'd talk to Tyler at Nelson Family Vineyard about borrowing their spreader, but I'd need a tractor which CTTB didn't have available. Which would it be: vineyard management company, spreader with no tractor, or insurance coverage (spreader and tractor). I made calls, waited, made more calls.

In the end, John Gramke said Tyler gave the ok and that John would bring the spreader on his trailer. Mark at CTTB called to say that the tractor was back for the weekend, which I could borrow. It all came together! Pete said he could bring his tractor early so that it would pull the spreader while I use the CTTB front loader tractor to pour in compost.

John showed up with a rented trailer and spreader on Saturday. What a life saver! He showed me how to use the spreader – functions, gears, settings, etc. John also appeased my fear about not getting to cover the seed. With the rain, there might not be enough time to cover the seed using the horses. Seeds need soil contact to germinate. But!, if it rains hard enough to do some earth moving, the seeds should get necessary coverage. I hope this year turns out to be an El Nino one.

The next day Pete came out with a crew to spread, but unfortunately his tractor tire was flat. This meant we had to use the CTTB tractor to pull the spreader and manually shovel compost into the spreader's hopper. At the end of the day, the bolts holding up the grease tank of the spreader's PTO-driven spinner broke. A broken grease tank and a flat tire were on the top of our list of Monday morning fixes.

Now, it's Monday afternoon and the drizzle passes through occasionally. The tractor is back from the shop, the compost is getting spread, and hopefully we'll be able to disc tomorrow morning. I've only had one meal today, but I'm going to get groceries and follow through on a social engagement for tomorrow. Healthy, sociable, and reliable: check. Well-balanced is in the works.